The invention relates to low power systems and methods for communicating audio frequency sound information to persons having portable receivers in an establishment.
Many rather large establishments, such as auditoriums, museums, churches, theaters, and the like utilize public address sound systems to permit a program, such as a lecture, music, sermon, etc. to be communicated to patrons within the establishment. Such large establishments usually have acoustical characteristics which result in "dead spots" and reverberations which interfere with hearing of the program by certain patrons. Various noises within the establishment emanating from other patrons or activities within the establishment also interfere with hearing of the program by certain patrons, especially patrons who are hard of hearing. The above-described circumstances present difficulties both for hard-of-hearing patrons and for their hosts. Frequently, the host provides special seating for hard-of-hearing patrons. Certain prior systems have included special seats with "wired in" receiving units including headsets or the like in order to enable hard-of-hearing patrons to clearly hear the program. However, necessity of providing special seating and/or sound equipment for hard-of-hearing patrons is inconvenient and expensive, and largely eliminates the choice of seating within the establishment that hard-of-hearing patrons would usually prefer.
Prior attempts to solve the above-described problems have involved "wired in" sound units or costly, specialized receivers for detecting electromagnetic signals containing the program information. One prior system utilizes specialized expensive audio frequency receivers capable of detecting audio frequency electromagnetic radiation containing the program information.